


Grading On a Curve

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5971513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy was really not expecting his sexual prowess to be called into question by a girl he never slept with, much less by a friend of Octavia's he hasn't seen in years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grading On a Curve

**Author's Note:**

> I never know how to write endings, so this has been sitting on my drive for approximately a week.

“Bellamy?”

He can’t place the voice at first, but when he turns around to find Clarke Griffin staring wonderingly at him, everything snaps into place. He thinks it was probably the pleasant tone that threw him. If she’d said his name with an ounce of the iciness she used to use when she spoke to him, he would have recognized it immediately.

Or maybe not. It’s not like he was expecting to run into his sister’s best friend from high school in the kitchen of the apartment he shares with Raven and Murphy.

“Clarke,” he says, hoping his voice comes out more surprised than confused. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s kind of a party going on,” she says, smirking.

“Yeah,” he snorts. “It’s been a little while since I’ve been to one, but I did recognize the signs. Keg, music, dancing people.”

“Not much of a partier these days?” She asks, pushing herself up on the counter and swinging her legs. She looks comfortable in denim shorts, a plain long-sleeved shirt and sneakers. Not dressed for a night out, necessarily, but still beautiful. He feels like less of a sleaze checking her out now that he knows they’re both legal adults, but she’s still– as far as he knows– one of O’s friends, and it's hard for him to forget that.

“Parties make me feel purposeless,” he confides, leaning against the doorframe. “They were never that fun for me.”

“You can find a bunch of different purposes in a party,” she argues, though it’s more of a friendly banter than a screaming match like they used to have.

“Like what?”

“Easy, cheap drunkenness.”

“I don’t do well getting drunk in public. I’m too susceptible to taking a dare when I’m sober, much less when I’ve been drinking.”

“I can picture that,” she says, smirking again. “Hanging out with people can be a purpose.”

“I hate people. The people I like, I’ll see outside of a party.”

“I can’t hold that against you,” she says, humming thoughtfully. “What about hooking up? Parties are great for that.”

“Yeah,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “That’s not really my scene anymore either.”

“Really?” She says, sounding intrigued. He can’t blame her; he’d had quite a reputation at their high school for being… popular with girls. “How come?”

“I don’t know. I grew up, I guess.” It’s a lie. He knows exactly what happened: life got real. His mom got evicted and he made Octavia come live with him, rather than following Aurora to move in with her current boyfriend. Sleeping around wasn’t a priority for a while, and when he did have the time or energy to put into finding a girl, he hadn’t really felt like it.

The last time he’d hooked up with anyone was with Raven, after the whole Finn debacle. But then she’d needed a place to stay, and Miller was moving out so he’d offered her their spare room. She’d been hurting and he was her friend, so nothing had ever come of the two of them.

“Maybe you just figured out you’re not as skilled as you thought you were in high school,” Clarke says, and he can’t tell if he’s getting to like or hate that smirk. Either way, it’s kind of turning him on.

“You can ask around, Princess. I don’t think anyone was disappointed.”

“They were in _high school_. Their experience was pretty limited, and genetics helped. Your fingers are naturally going to fit better than theirs. That’s no promise you knew what to do with them.”

“I had a lot of practice,” he reminds her. She shrugs, indifferent.

“I’m just saying, my own standards now are a little different than they were back then. And I’ve learned a lot, myself, since then. I heard a lot of rumors about your sexual prowess, but there’s no guarantee you’re all you were cracked up to be.”

Bellamy is borderline offended, but she’s still using that teasing tone and smiling at him like he’s in on the joke.

“Ah, but you did hear good things,” he says, working to keep his voice light. This conversation is a little surreal to him, and gets even more so when Clarke busts out laughing.

“I’m just messing with you, Bell.” She hops off the counter and pats his shoulder reassuringly as she passes him. “I’m sure you’re great in bed. I hope you can enjoy the party, despite its pointlessness. Nice catching up!” She calls behind her, and then she’s disappeared into a crowd of people.

Bellamy can’t get her comments out of his mind for the rest of the night. He’s not that worried that she might be right; he’s never gotten any complaints. And Raven, at the very least, definitely would have told him if she hadn’t enjoyed herself. But he also has no way of knowing for sure.

He thinks he shows great restraint in waiting until nearly two the next afternoon before he barges into her room and interrupts her homework by flopping dramatically on her bed.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Am I good in bed?”

Raven is quiet for a moment, staring at him like he’s a math problem she’s trying to work out

“Where is this coming from?” She asks, cutting to the chase.

“Some girl at your party last night told me I probably wasn’t good in bed. I knew you’d give it to me straight.”

“Some girl,” she repeats. “Who was it?”

“My sister’s high school best friend.”

“You slept with your sister’s high school best friend?”

“No, she just heard a lot of rumors from girls I hooked up with in high school,” he says, waving her questions away. “So am I good or not? I need validation. Or constructive criticism. Your choice.”

“You were… you were different. From Finn.”

“Is that your way of saying I wasn’t good?” Bellamy groans, throwing an arm over his face so he doesn’t have to look at the uncomfortable expression on Raven’s face.

“No,” she snaps, pinching him and smiling grimly when he yelps. “It’s the truth. I can’t compare the two of you, because of course you were different. Mostly I wasn’t in love with you, and that’s what I needed. It was different with you because I didn’t love you.”

“I’m crushed,” he says, dry. She pinches him again, gentler this time.

“Why are you taking this chick so seriously?”

“I don’t know,” he says, half laughing and half sighing. “I’m an idiot, I guess.”

“That’s for sure.” They’re both quiet for a minute, and then she speaks again. “You were above average. I was too screwed up to really evaluate that night well. Happy?”

“Yeah. Let’s never talk about this again.”

“Deal.”

He’s actually managed to get some of his essay done when Raven pokes her head into his room and asks, “Does your sister’s high school best friend have a name?”

“Uh, yeah. Clarke Griffin?” A strange look crosses Raven’s face and for the first time it occurs to him to wonder how Clarke got invited last night. “You know her?”

“She was Finn’s other woman.”

“But– she was here?”

“Yeah, we’re sort of friends now,” Raven says, and once again Bellamy finds himself mystified at Raven’s methods of befriending people. Seriously. Half her friends he’s convinced she met through a Pyromaniacs Anonymous group or something because there’s no way she and Jasper and Wick all met by chance.

“Good for you. Both of you.”

“Don’t take anything she said too seriously,” Raven tells him, and then, after considering, adds, “And don’t sleep with her just to prove yourself.”

After that, Clarke is over at his apartment a lot. She knows Jasper’s friend Monty from some biology classes, and Octavia’s boyfriend Lincoln is a TA for one of her art classes, so in a weird way she kind of brings the different branches of his friend group together. They start having movie nights, going out for trivia at the bar around the corner, generally making themselves at home on his couch. He even comes home one night to find her cooking in his kitchen.

By which he means making margaritas and keeping Murphy company while he makes fajitas. Bellamy feels like he’s stepped into an alternate reality.

“Hey Bellamy!” She chirps, thrusting a drink at him. “It’s happy hour.”

“It’s four p.m.”

“That’s an hour, and adding tequila makes it happy,” she says, setting it down on the counter in front of him. “Are you eating with us?”

“Nah, I’m going to hole up in my room and work on my thesis,” he says, giving her an awkward smile. “I’ll see you guys later.”

He’s only just gotten his laptop out when there’s a soft knock on the door. Raven and Murphy are nowhere near that polite, so he knows it’s got to be Clarke. He clears his throat and says, “Come on in.” Sure enough, her blonde waves are the first thing he sees.

“Hey, I just wanted to check and make sure we were cool,” she says, leaning against his desk. “I know we had a weird conversation at that party… I didn’t know you and Raven were friends. That’s not an excuse, but I probably wouldn’t have acted like a dick if I’d thought I was going to be seeing you around this often.”

“You were probably right,” he says, trying to act like her comments haven’t been churning in the back of his mind for the past few weeks. He knows he’s attractive, knows how to pick women up if that’s what he’s looking for, but it hadn’t occurred to him to wonder if he was a good lay or not until Clarke had called it into question. He does know what he’s doing, he just doesn’t hook up enough to keep in practice. “And we are cool. But don’t apologize for being real. I’d rather my friends were honest with me than acting like they’re–”

“Not an asshole?” She cracks a smile and it’s almost better than the smirk. It’s more sincere, he thinks. “That’s the thing, though. I don’t really think those things. I just genuinely am an asshole sometimes.”

“To be fair, I am too.”

“Oh, I know,” she says, her smile widening ever so slightly. “But you did get lots of good publicity in high school, so they can’t all be wrong, right?”

He lets out a bark of laughter, caught off guard. It’s strange hearing Clarke speak so casually about things that would have made her blush as a teenager.

“I guess not.”

“Glad we’ve got that cleared up.” She starts to head back into the kitchen, making him promise that he’ll come out for dinner in a couple of hours.

After that, their friendship grows steadily. She’ll come over after her classes, whether or not Raven is home, and do her homework on their couch. When Bellamy asks her why, she describes in great detail the way her art supplies have invaded every available surface in her room, and even texts him a picture when she gets home that night.

She brings a juicer over at some point and she and Raven make him and Murphy taste-test different concoctions that vary in quality. She leaves several indistinguishable bottles in the fridge, neatly labeled with her name, and downs them all as she studies for her exams at the foot of Bellamy’s bed.

They start working their way through _The Walking Dead_ together. Bellamy argues for something lighter, more comedic, but Clarke convinces him that the adrenaline from one episode can carry him through an entire study session. He finds out that she gets jumpy during the more intense episodes and takes every opportunity available to try to scare her.

Before he knows it, they’re real, certifiable friends. Her presence in the apartment is warm and unwavering, reliable in a comforting way. She’s always there with a joke or an innuendo, or with the perfect temperament to diffuse the explosive situations that crop up so often between the three hotheads living in his apartment. She’s the unofficial fourth roommate, even keeping a change of clothes and basic toiletries in a bag in Bellamy’s closet (because Raven’s is full of flammable materials).

She’s more than that to him. It’s the fact that he’s transfixed by her enthusiasm when she talks about her latest art project, the way her laughter sounds when Raven teaches Siri to tell dirty jokes, her smirk when she says something crass, the adorably determined set of her mouth when she’s flailing around at Just Dance with Murphy.

Her understanding, unpitying expression when he tells her why he stopped going to parties in the first place.

He hasn’t been able to get her out of his head since that first night.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her if he tried, but he tries to downplay it as much as possible anyway. Harboring unrequited feelings is a far better option than making Clarke feel so awkward she’d never come around. The way things are now, she drops by unannounced all the time and it’s pretty great. He doesn’t want to jeopardize that.

“Dude, it’s Friday night,” she says, upon waltzing in like she owns the place and finding him stretched out on the couch in gym shorts and a hoodie.

She, of course, looks nothing like someone who has big plans. He’s learned that her outfits are firmly casual and comfortable, not that anyone would mind because she’s always gorgeous anyways. She’s just not in the best position to be judging by someone’s outfit whether they’re going out or staying in.

“So?”

“So I know you hate parties, but there are tons of other social, not-lame things you could be doing right now.”

“It’s been a long week,” he says defensively. “Besides, you’re here now, so this counts as being social.”

“It’s still lame,” she decides, grabbing one of Raven’s beers from the fridge and settling down next to him on the couch. “My awesomeness isn’t transferrable.”

“I’m at peace with that.”

They get through several episodes before Murphy slinks in from wherever he’s been. He smells like cigarettes and he tracks actual _sand_ through the common area and into his room, but he ruffles Clarke’s hair as he passes and it’s the friendliest Bellamy has ever seen Murphy act.

“You and Raven, I swear,” he says to Clarke, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve never met anyone more talented at befriending the most impossible people.”

“Like you?” She jokes.

They’ve fallen towards each other as the evening has progressed. Part of it is because Bellamy’s couch is broken and tilts any and all of its occupants towards the center. Part of it is because every time Clarke gets scared, her instinct is to reach for his arm. He’s not complaining.

“Why else would you be holed up in my apartment with me on a Friday night?”

“There’s really no logical reason,” she agrees, stealing the beer out of his hands to take a swig.

“That’s what I’m saying. You do remember that you don’t live here, right?”

“Ever think maybe I just like you?” He pauses at this, pushing his glasses up so he can see her properly. She’s staring at the paused television as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world, her hand clenched around the neck of his beer bottle, her legs tense across his lap.

“Only when I’m being really optimistic,” he responds, placing a tentative hand on the bare skin of her knee.

She huffs and sets the beer on the floor, sitting up more so she can lean closer to him.

“Ever think you’ll make a move?” She asks, her voice husky; private. “Or am I going to have to do it?”

He leans in and she tilts her face towards his. His nose skims her cheek and he can _feel_ the air, electrified between them, his nerves standing on end everywhere they’re barely touching.

“I think I can take it from here,” he whispers and when his lips land on hers the storm breaks. Lightning runs through his veins, skates across his skin in the wake of her fingertips.

His hands find the small of her back, resting just under her shirt, just above the waistband of her jeans. She makes a frustrated noise and adjusts so she’s straddling him, both of them tilting a little more into the valley of his broken couch. He has to reach out a hand to catch them from falling off, and it breaks the moment.

“We can move this to your bed,” Clarke laughs in his ear before moving her lips to it.

“Up to you,” he says, following the line of her neck down her shoulder to nose aside her bra strap. “I didn’t want to pressure you, but it’s unquestionably a better location.”

“I definitely prefer it to this couch,” she says, grasping his shoulders in mild alarm when he stands and starts to carry her to his room.

“Really? I couldn’t tell by the way you’re constantly napping on it when I get home from class.”

“It smells like you,” she says, falling onto her back when he sets her down and pulling him with her. “Besides, I was hoping you’d take it as a hint.”

“From now on you should just assume I’m really obtuse,” he says, grinning as she tugs his shirt off and flings it towards his desk.

“It’s probably my own fault for teasing you about not being good in bed literally the first time I saw you again,” she says, pushing him off so she can wriggle out of her jeans. “I never meant to say that to you, or to anyone. They were just residual thoughts left over from high school when I didn’t know how to deal with my crush on my best friend’s older brother. I can’t blame you for assuming I wasn’t interested.”

He kisses her long and slow, pressing her deep into the comforter, and when she breaks away for air, he’s almost lost track of their conversation.

“If it helps, I definitely know you’re interested now,” he says, dropping a kiss to the tip of her nose. “And you get to see my skills in action. Everybody wins.”

“Ah, yes,” she half-laughs, half-gasps as his mouth moves to her pulse, tilting her head to expose more of her neck to him. “The stuff of legends. I never thought I’d be so lucky.”

Her lips find his again, and every one of his senses is overwhelmed. He’s drowning in her, and he never wants to come up for air.

“I wasn’t lying,” she says, after, when they’re both catching their breaths. Her fingers trace his jaw, his cheekbones, the line of his nose, as if she’s mapping his features out so she can draw them. “I really never did think I’d be this lucky.”

Her fingers linger over the seam of his lips, following as they turn up in a soft smile.

“So I guess the sex was good, after all?” He teases, slinging an arm across her waist to pull her closer.

“I’m not talking about the sex.” She swats at his chest as her eyes drift closed, but her hand gets caught between them. “I’m talking about you. Just– Just you.”

“I feel pretty lucky too,” he tells her. From the way her breathing has evened out, he can tell she’s asleep, and he’s not sure if she heard him or not. He closes his own eyes and lets himself bask in the atmosphere of contentment. There’s no rush. He’ll tell her again in the morning.


End file.
